He said Bangladesh should earn more from the IT sector than from the readymade garment sector, and ‘in future, IT export earnings should exceed those of the garment industry’.

Joy, who was speaking at the inauguration of the first ‘Business Process Outsourcing Summit 2015’ at a hotel in Dhaka on Wednesday, urged the nation’s youth to become IT entrepreneurs.

He told the audience that the government’s ICT division was running a training programme in outsourcing. “About 30,000 were trained last year. Nearly 50,000 will undergo training from next year.”

​“Earnings from outsourcing at present are $100 million and jobs in this field are about 25,000. In the next five years, the government aims to earn one billion dollars and create 200,000 jobs,” said Joy.

The government’s ICT division and the Bangladesh Association of Call Centres and Outsourcing are jointly holding the two-day BPO summit.

IT professionals from home and abroad and company representatives are taking part in it.

Joy, son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, said youths between 18 and 35 years of age had the maximum scope of finding outsourcing jobs.

“We want to guarantee employment in this field for our youths of the future. This is the aim of our digital Bangladesh and the Awami League government.”

In Joy’s view, “Nothing of the advancement that you see today was there when we began our journey towards a digital Bangladesh six years ago.

“No one had imagined Bangladesh would come this far in such a short period of time.”

Six years ago, total ICT exports amounted to $26 million and the number of jobs was no more than a few thousand, he said. But within the last six years, ICT exports have soared to $300 million and over 200,000 people have found employment.

“The BPO sector accounts for 25,000 jobs. Six years ago, Bangladesh hardly had a BPO sector worth mentioning,” said Joy.

He said the government had created several facilities, including human resource training, for the expansion of this sector.

“We want our youths to be entrepreneurs. Let them do outsourcing, freelancing, run IT companies, where they will be assured of employment and a future, and will be able to take the country forward,” Joy said.